Home
News
In Focus
Business
Metro
Nation
World
Sports
Feature
Opinion
View more »Opinion Columns
Wan LixinOpinion deputy editor of Shanghai Daily
Turning 60 but still working? How to encourage China’s retirees back to work
Space food prospects: Plants on board Chinese space station growing well
Sunday
- Subscribe
Related News
Our ancestors came from Asia
Source: Agencies |
July 2, 2009, Thursday
|
Print Edition
Print Edition
FOSSILS recently discovered in Myanmar could prove that the common ancestors of humans, monkeys and apes - anthropoids - evolved from primates in Asia, rather than Africa, researchers say in a study released yesterday.
The 38 million-year-old pieces of jawbones and teeth are part of a growing body of evidence that is helping scientists to understand the origin of primates, said Dr Chris Beard, a paleontologist at the Carnegie Museum of Natural History in Pittsburgh and a member of the team who found the fossils in 2005.
Beard and his team concluded that the fossils - which they dubbed Ganlea megacanina - came from a new species that belonged to an extinct family of Asian anthropoid primates known on Amphipithecidae. His team determined that the fossil was 38 million years old, making it several million years older than any anthropoid found in Africa and the second-oldest discovered in Asia.
In 1994, Beard and Chinese colleagues found fossilized foot bones of the anthropoid Eosimias which lived 40-45 million years ago in China.
Beard said the age of both fossils challenge the idea anthropoid primates evolved in Africa, where Lucy, a 3.2 million-year-old fossil, was found in 1974.
The 38 million-year-old pieces of jawbones and teeth are part of a growing body of evidence that is helping scientists to understand the origin of primates, said Dr Chris Beard, a paleontologist at the Carnegie Museum of Natural History in Pittsburgh and a member of the team who found the fossils in 2005.
Beard and his team concluded that the fossils - which they dubbed Ganlea megacanina - came from a new species that belonged to an extinct family of Asian anthropoid primates known on Amphipithecidae. His team determined that the fossil was 38 million years old, making it several million years older than any anthropoid found in Africa and the second-oldest discovered in Asia.
In 1994, Beard and Chinese colleagues found fossilized foot bones of the anthropoid Eosimias which lived 40-45 million years ago in China.
Beard said the age of both fossils challenge the idea anthropoid primates evolved in Africa, where Lucy, a 3.2 million-year-old fossil, was found in 1974.
- About Us
- |
- Terms of Use
- |
-
RSS - |
- Privacy Policy
- |
- Contact Us
- |
- Shanghai Call Center: 962288
- |
- Tip-off hotline: 52920043
- 沪ICP证：沪ICP备05050403号-1
- |
- 互联网新闻信息服务许可证：31120180004
- |
- 网络视听许可证：0909346
- |
- 广播电视节目制作许可证：沪字第354号
- |
- 增值电信业务经营许可证：沪B2-20120012
Copyright © 1999- Shanghai Daily. All rights reserved.Preferably viewed with Internet Explorer 8 or newer browsers.
